


Like the holding of hands, like the breaking of glass

by Azzandra



Category: The Arcana (Visual Novel)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Pre-Canon, Implied Sexual Content, Multi, mild Blood and Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-09
Updated: 2020-11-09
Packaged: 2021-03-09 01:20:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,268
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27476449
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Azzandra/pseuds/Azzandra
Summary: In which Asra returns before the Apprentice dies, and things turn out radically different.
Relationships: Apprentice/Asra/Julian Devorak
Comments: 2
Kudos: 32





	Like the holding of hands, like the breaking of glass

**Author's Note:**

> Technically this is related to my other fic 'A lonely company' but reading that one is not required. It's just the same apprentice in both.
> 
> This is just a meandering piece I wrote for the sake of getting some pre-canon and AU thoughts out.

Sprawled as he was, Julian's arms hung over the top of the sofa's backrest, spreading outwards such that it created perfect negative space on either side of his torso for the two magicians to occupy. And, because nature abhors a vacuum, that was why Julian had one of them on either side, under each arm as they cuddled together on the sofa.

One of Philipa's legs was curled up under her, but the other was thrown carelessly over Julian's lap, and Asra had managed to lock one ankle around Julian's, snaring him as inescapably as a hunter's trap. Not that Julian minded being pinned in place at all between the two creatures; even when their attentions were solely on each other, Julian enjoyed being caught in the heat of their crossfire. 

Which was not to say they were always bickering. Or that Julian could even tell when they were--he had yet to fully learn how to interpret the panoply of little gazes and microexpressions they exchanged when they spoke without speaking. Did magicians read minds? That sounded like a thing magicians might do, to Julian. He might have even said so out loud, which brought them into a discussion about auras.

Julian didn't know shit about auras, all he knew was that he liked the sound of their voices as they tried to explain.

"We don't really perceive auras with our regular senses," Philipa was explaining, her fingers tracing a delicate line along the deep V of his shirt. 

Julian was so distracted by the barely-felt path of her fingers, he only belatedly made an interested sound, "Oh?"

On his other side, Asra was watching him from under his eyelashes. Julian could feel the weight of Asra's violet gaze even more than he felt Philipa's physical touch, for all that Asra looked like he barely deigned to acknowledge Julian's existence most of the time. He had a drink in his hand, something fruity and cyan-colored, and as he traced the rim with a finger, ice formed inside the glass; the exterior of the glass was goosebumped with condensation. What a strangely mundane use for magic.

"We do sort of... see auras, as colors, as impressions," Philipa continued, and her fingers slipped the border of Julian's shirt to touch skin and slide across chest hair curiously. Julian had to smother the impulse to arch up and make her touch more solid. His blood sang in a steady thrum as he was caught between these two; not quite arousal, but a pleasant slow boil that might lead to it. Maybe he was feeling their auras. Most likely, it was the satisfaction of being in the presence of two attractive individuals at the same time.

"That, uh... doesn't sound all that useful," Julian said distractedly.

Asra snorted quietly. His disdain was a delicate thing, but it tugged at something hot in Julian's belly. The delicate equilibrium of sensations in Julian's body momentarily tilted, swayed, sent prickles down his back. Julian turned his head towards Asra, quirking an eyebrow.

"You don't really know that it isn't," Asra challenged.

Julian grinned toothily in response.

"Why don't you enlighten me then, O great magician?" he replied.

Asra's lids lowered, and he looked at Julian from under his eyelashes as a smile slowly spread across his face. Then Asra shrugged, as if it was no great burden to him to educate some fool.

"For the skilled practitioner," Asra said, his fingers dipping into his drink to fish out a chip of ice, "auras can reveal a great deal about someone. It can indicate if someone is being deceptive, if they are afflicted by any curses, if they are strong with magic. It can even reveal mundane things, such as state of mind--"

Julian's attention had been on Asra's shapely mouth, the words washing over him almost unheeded, and so he did not notice the quick work of Asra's fingers until he was already pressing the ice against Julian's abdomen. The sudden coolness, sharp and almost painful, made Julian's muscles jump, and his spine arch involuntarily. He hissed in surprise.

"--or arousal," Asra finished his lecture serenely.

Julian's mouth fell open, but words stuck in his throat. As though Asra had knocked down the levees himself, desire flooded through Julian's system, burning and acid in contrast to the pleasant warmth he'd been basking in before. A twinge of humiliation, as Julian found himself revealed so starkly, turned into another spike of arousal, quickly subsumed by the betrayal of his body.

The way Asra smirked wasn't making it any better.

"Asra!" Philipa chided, her cool hand pressing into Julian's chest more firmly now, as though he might float away if she was not keeping him down. The ice had melted into a trickle of water, trailing down past his navel like a cold finger and stopping its progression at his waistband.

Julian's face turned to her next, and his tongue felt too thick to form words, but he wanted to plead with her not to stop this--yet the look on Philipa's face now was too much a mirror of Asra's, and it was Julian's sudden realization that he was caught between them.

"Don't let him scare you, Julian," Philipa said, her voice buttery-sweet as she looked at him. "Auras can't reveal everything about you. Most of the time, you can use your own eyes and see about the same things." 

Her palm still pressed against his chest, and her fingers played with the russet hairs as though fascinated by their existence. 

"You certainly don't need to read auras to know the signs of arousal. You can learn that from your medical textbooks. Dilated pupils, flushed skin..." 

Her fingers trailed a path to the nearest nipple, circling its hard peak in a way that made lightning shoot through Julian's body, and he was certain that was not magic either. He panted under the onslaught of unexpected sensations, trying to keep from unraveling.

"...labored breath..." Philipa continued, her voice lowering as her lips coming up to his ear as though imparting a secret, "...engorgement of the--"

"Hah," Julian's head fell back as he tried laughing but found himself merely exhaling a sharp breath. Yes, yes, he recalled what the textbook said. His... relevant anatomical feature was... decidedly engorged at the moment, straining against his trousers in a way that he was absolutely certain could not escape anyone's notice.

They were enjoying this, making him squirm, seeing him cut open before them like a specimen, spilling out all the raw and ugly things inside.

"His condition seems serious," Asra remarked with an impressive imitation of medical detachment, but his cheeks were flushed as he looked to Philipa, and Philipa giggled in response, and so Julian did not feel like the only one revealing himself at that moment. This served to do nothing but stoke his desire even more.

"Ought to do something about it," Philipa agreed--and then her hand fell to Julian's thigh.

Asra made a noncommittal sound, but the way a smile curled around his lips made him seem more coy than aloof.

Julian would have spared a few stray wits wondering how he'd gotten into this situation, but then, that was not necessary at this very moment.

* * *

Acquiring an apprentice was no inconsequential matter, but all Julian had to do, really, honestly, was stride into the clinic one morning, take a look around the room, and clap his hands together for attention.

The clinic's sole volunteer looked up--the poor generous soul who served as nurse and janitorial staff both, because Julian couldn't afford to hire anyone to do either one of those jobs. Not his fault, and not really the palace's fault either. The countess provided him with a generous stipend for his research into the red plague. But once that money was spent on ingredients for medicinal draughts, and for various necessary experimental material, what was left over was barely enough to keep Julian fed. And even then, most of it went to feeding his dog instead.

"Right," Julian bounced in place with nervous energy, once, twice, before stopping himself. "So. I don't suppose you can read and write?"

Whenever he asked that question in Vesuvia, the answer more often than not came as a negative. The literacy rate in Vesuvia was fundamentally horrifying in a way that Julian was not used to. The pressing need for long-term assistance at the clinic had persuaded Julian to take on an apprentice, but the educational infrastructure in Vesuvia--or rather the lack of it--had forced him to lower his standards drastically. If he wasn't going to find someone who could at the very least read, then next he was going to be on the lookout for anyone who could tell left from right a majority of the time.

But like a straw thrown to a drowning man, the volunteer nodded. She'd been in the process of stripping down a bed, and thus stood awkwardly in place with sheets bundled in her hands.

"Great!" Julian brightened. "Perfect! Has anyone told you about the exciting opportunity of studying medicine? No? You're in luck! Meet me in my office!"

With that, he turned on his heel with the flutter of his black coat, and led the way.

His office was at the back of the clinic, and the space was not so large that it was a long walk, though it did require passing by Brundle, who was sleeping in the hall. She cracked open an eyelid as Julian passed her, and made a sound that wasn't quite a bark, but more like an exasperated huff before going right back to sleep. The valiant guardian apparently saw nothing suspicious.

The room that he generously called his office had been a utility closet at some point, probably. The desk was wedged against the wall opposite to the door, under a small square window which let in thready sunlight. Along the walls, shelves were laden with books and rolls of parchment. 

There was only one chair in the room, and Julian did not sit in it, instead electing to hang his coat on the hook by the door, and hop onto the desk itself. When his newly appointed apprentice showed up at his office door, he indicated that she should sit in the chair.

She hesitated in the hallway for a moment, looking down at Brundle, but when the dog did not react in any way, she slipped into the office, and sat in the indicated seat.

She sat almost primly, though the way she didn't seem to know how to place her feet--ankles crossed, then uncrossed, accidentally hitting the side of her foot against a leg chair and wincing--indicated nervousness. 

Julian earnestly tried to project his best 'don't be nervous, I'm your fun new teacher!' energy into the room, though perhaps manic smiling wasn't the best way to do that. He tried a reassuring pat on the shoulder, and because of the relative heights involved--meaning him, a lanky bastard sitting on top of a desk, and a small woman in a chair--that involved some leaning down. It-- It involved a lot of leaning down actually. Uh, he might have looked ridiculous, but if there was something he'd learned, it was if the other person was also concerned about looking ridiculous, they were less likely to notice him trying not to look ridiculous too, so... score?

Where was he? Ah, yes.

"I want you to know, you don't actually have to do this. If, uh... if you don't want to, that is?" Julian offered.

"Oh, no, I want to," she nodded earnestly, and now Julian was trying to recall her name. He should have had the volunteers wearing name tags, he thought desperately, before recalling once again the state of Vesuvian education. Right. Almost nobody here could read.

Had she ever even told him her name? Sometimes people simply showed up to volunteer, but especially with the red plague, in truth, the bulk of the volunteers were former patients, grateful for the treatment they'd received. Not... not former patients with the red plague, who had their own quarantined hospital beds, and who tended not to return in full health, but still. Julian was sure he'd recall if he'd ever treated her.

No, he was sure she'd simply showed up one day, to bring him the fresh sheets from the laundress, and then had stuck around to help him reassure one of the elderly patients who was not at all trusting of foreigners. This happened sometimes, though the women who showed up out of the blue and bullied him into letting them help him were usually elderly widows.

"Ever apprenticed for a doctor before?" he asked, wracking his brains to recall the kinds of questions Doctor Satrinava had asked him in the beginning.

"Not for a doctor," she replied slowly, her gaze fixing in the middle-distance as she thought back. "A midwife, for a bit. An herbalist, for a little while. And I run a magic shop, so I do some potions."

Julian was surprised by this promising experience. An herbalist, that could have potential. Magic was silly stuff, so he didn't put much stock into that being useful. But...

"A midwife!" he declared, grinning as he clapped his hands together. "How many kids did you help deliver?"

"Ah, well.. three if you count the goat," she replied, rubbing a hand at the back of her neck.

Julian couldn't help a bark of laughter at that, so sudden it even startled him. He bit it back quickly, but his new apprentice looked up at him with surprise, and then a thread of tension seemed to unravel from her body. She leaned back in her chair, tilting her head to one side so he could not see her smile; but he did anyway.

"Now, don't sell yourself short here," Julian said, "midwifery's not for the faint of heart. You, uh... deal with a lot of the same things as a doctor, with the screaming patients, and the blood, and the... the lives on the line. It's... It's good to know if you can already handle those things before you jump into being a doctor. You can handle that stuff, right?"

"I think so," she sad, then added, with a more stricken look, as if just now realizing what she was getting herself into, "I hope so."

"Well, you're hired, anyway," he said with a wink. "No getting away now!"

She grinned back at him, any trace of shyness disappearing like the sun breaking through the clouds, and Julian felt a twinge of guilt at that. His countenance turned grimmer for a moment.

"You do know," he said more seriously, "that I came to Vesuvia to research treatments for the red plague?"

"Yes," she replied, now mirroring his gravity. "You know I never actually volunteered at a clinic before?"

Now Julian blinked, taken by surprise.

"You picked a bad time for altruism," he remarked.

"Isn't..." She pressed her lips together for a moment, a sour twist to her expression. "Isn't the bad times when help is needed the most?"

"True enough," Julian agreed mildly. "I've seen the kinds of people who will show up at battlefield clinics, and following natural disasters, and offer any help they can. Tragedy has a knack for making people pull together. But nobly cutting up sheets for bandages is different from tending plague victims. Funny things, plagues. Make people think twice about just how generous they'd like to be."

"Well, it should make people think twice," she said, setting her jaw stubbornly. "Flesh wounds and broken bones aren't contagious."

"Alright, fair point," Julian quirked a smile, before asking, "Then why do you want to help with it?"

"Because," she said, "the red plague has been in Vesuvia for as long as I've lived here, and nobody's found a cure for it yet. If it's coming for all of us eventually, I'd rather be on the side of people willing to fight against it, than patiently waiting for my number to be up."

Julian raised an eyebrow at this, which he thought quite eloquently summed up how intrigued he was, but his new apprentice must have taken it the wrong way, since she merely coughed in her fist and shrugged.

"Anyway, that's how I feel about it," she mumbled, looking to the ground.

"We are going to have a wonderful partnership," Julian declared with great confidence. He extended his hand, and after a beat staring at it, his apprentice took it, and gave it a shake. Her hand was small in his, but warm and rough, and with an iron grip that was going to have Julian think twice before underestimating her. "That being said... uh... what's your name?"

She burst into laughter then, though perhaps it was more like snickers.

"Oh, you can just-- call me Philipa," she said. "Nice to meet you, Doctor Devorak."

* * *

The first time Julian gave his new apprentice a test, it was technically before he'd even taught her anything. But he had to know what he was working with, so he gave her one of the more basic texts of medicine he had available--Arpindel's 'Natural Sciences of the Human Body'--and asked her to do a write-up on it.

She turned in a ten page review in which she picked apart Arpindel's writing style, and that was not what Julian had in mind when he gave her the assignment, but she was not precisely wrong about the man's habit of rambling and repeating things ten times over to make a single point. The book was a doorstopper.

He sat in his office with a sandwich over his short lunch break, leafing through the pages, trying to glean some insight about Philipa from the way she wrote. It was almost cursive, but with the usual flourishes blunted and simplified. And her spelling was functional, though she mixed conventions. She used S instead of Z on some words, and doubled letters consistently even when the rules required irregularity. He couldn't pinpoint where she might have learned to read or write, though she had adequate grasp of both.

By the time he finished his sandwich, Philipa appeared, carrying a basket full of glass containers she had washed for him.

"I had to boil them," she said, carefully placing the basket down. The glass gleamed, cleaner than the day Julian had bought most of those bottles. "One of them was so filthy, there was mold growing in it."

"Ah, yeah, that was probably my mold-growing bottle," Julian said, and picked up one of the bottle to hold to the light. It was impeccable. Not even any streaks. "You sure you didn't use some kind of magic?"

He meant it as a joke, but Philipa froze, her eyebrows going up.

"Is that going to affect things, if I did?" she asked.

"I--uh... I'm not sure?" He blinked, but he couldn't think back on anything he'd ever read on the subject. Magic was not his usual wheelhouse. "Maybe you could do some reading on that."

"Oh! Yes, I think I have a book I could consult back at the shop," she said, suddenly agreeable.

"I didn't mean to give you homework--"

"No, it's fine--"

"I just meant--"

"No, no, I understand, I shouldn't have--"

They both cut off at once, shifting in perfect sync from awkwardly trying to talk over one another, to awkwardly staring at each other in silence.

Then, just as well-timed, they both burst into laughter.

"I'm sorry, Doctor," Philipa said, wiping an eye, "I'll look it up, though. Really I will."

"It's fine," he said. "You don't need to do that. And please, call me Julian."

"Alright, Doctor," she said, with an impish grin as she picked up the basket of glassware again. 

* * *

She did resist calling him Julian, but the way she would call him 'Doctor', the particular way the word sounded in her mouth, the bespoke inflection she would give it, made it feel less impersonal than it otherwise should have. She was also not half bad as apprentice, and maybe a lot less squeamish about some things than he had been when he first started out. She took to his instruction easily enough to make Julian think he was better at this teaching thing than he initially assumed.

Over the weeks and months of her apprenticeship, what he came to enjoy most about her was her company. She was always readily available when he wanted to bounce his thoughts off another person, instead of just chasing them in circles inside his own head, and he was always entranced when she spoke about magic, because it resembled nothing he ever encountered in books.

"I didn't so much learn from books," she admitted sheepishly once, and did not elaborate.

Julian took this as another piece of her strange puzzle, fitting it together with all the other little crumbs of her past that he had managed to glean so far. He could have asked, maybe, and she would have told him, perhaps, but his restless mind enjoyed the distraction of thinking about Philipa and her strange past and her incongruous array of skills when it was too tired to think of heavier things.

And maybe she also enjoyed being mysterious. That had to be why she gave him those coquettish smiles whenever he snapped up some new detail about her.

He didn't mind the smiles. He enjoyed the smiles quite a bit. Maybe quite a bit too much, when it came down to it, but it all balanced out with how much she enjoyed giving him the smiles. He kept thinking about taking her dancing, or drinking, or both: spinning her in some mad tarantella until she was dizzy and breathing heavily, and leaning against his chest flush-faced.

After the plague was cured, he kept thinking optimistically. He didn't have the time yet for painting the town red with Philipa like he really wanted. And he so very much wanted to take the time.

She'd probably not subscribe to his dancing all night plan, when she was already hounding him to get more sleep.

But she also still bought him the coffee that kept him up and scribbling feverishly all night, albeit with that look of resigned disapproval on her face.

"Coffee is no substitute for real sleep, you know," she pointed out often.

"It's a palliative, not a cure! I know," he would reply with a winning grin.

He hardly ever left his study, anyway--or, he called it his study, but really it was some mix of library and laboratory: bookshelves, and a table, and every other surface in the room covered with bottles and equipment and open books and leeches. So many leeches. The fact that there was also a cot in the corner gave him the excuse to spend late nights, even when he would have been better served by going home at night.

Unfortunately, that maybe encouraged bad habits in him, because Philipa came in one day to find him sprawled out on the cot having what might be described as an episode.

"I'm dying," Julian declared, eyes roving to the ceiling as his heart beat so fast it felt like it would tear out of his chest and shoot across the room on its own. He'd seen something like that happen with a mattress spring once: tore right through the mattress material as it broke. Was the human heart like a spring? Oh, he had to write this down, he sensed it was a brilliant insight.

"You're not dying," Philipa replied.

Julian shot out his hand, beckoning her over. She obligingly gave him her own hand, which he pressed against his chest.

"This is how I go out," Julian continued, now profoundly anguished by all his unfinished business.

"You just had your coffee too strong," Philipa pointed out, sitting on the edge of the cot. "You're having palpitations."

Julian was still pressing her hand against the left side of his chest through the open slit of his shirt--oh, wait, her palm was definitely pressed against his nipple right now. Damn. That was miscalculated. That was definitely miscalculated, considering that he was apparently not dying and thus not likely to take the easy way out of an embarrassing situation.

"I..." Julian felt heat overtake him, and though his heart was unlikely to stop beating wildly on its own, Philipa's proximity was not helping matters, either. 

She leaned over him, eyes soft and voice kind.

"You're not dying," she promised. "I wouldn't let that happen to you."

"Oh," was Julian's reply. "That's-- Thank you."

He cringed a bit at the pathetic reply, but she only reached up to brush the hair out of his eyes, raking it back. 

"This is why coffee is no substitute for sleep," she said gently.

"I'm never drinking coffee ever again," he promised, with the solemnity of swearing an oath.

She snorted, disbelieving, but she sat with him until his galloping heart calmed down, and she brought him water to drink, and he didn't die after all. Small wonder, she was right.

* * *

If she brought him coffee after that, it was always watered down with more milk or cream than Julian would have preferred; the taste put him off, which was just as well if he was meant to be weaned off the stuff.

Another small change in habits, sweet as the cream that lightened his coffee to an undrinkable sandy brown: Philipa would place the mug on his desk and then catch his eye, brush her knuckles against his cheek, trail fingers to cup his jaw and press against the flutter of his pulse at his throat. He couldn't tell if she was pretending to be sneaky as she checked his pulse, or if she was being openly brazen, but the results of her little test would be tainted anyway by how his heart picked up the pace when she did this.

Julian suffered at the touch, because it was always taken away from him too soon. He was going to be driven mad if it carried on for any longer, he thought just before it got worse.

It happened because of this: his clinic was not in the best neighborhood. South End had its fair share of miscreants and hooligans that it called its inhabitants, and Julian--well, he didn't pick and choose his patients. He'd never been doctor to the virtuous alone, and he had probably kept alive quite a few people who'd more benefit the world by being dead, so he wasn't going to start being picky now.

Which was to say, he got stabbed.

It was his own fault, really. Sometimes patients came to his clinic in a roving-eye panic, injured and scared and unwilling to trust but pushed to it by desperation. Julian tried to be as soothing as a doctor ought to in situations like that, but he never had quite the right energy for putting on an air of calm and reassurance.

The patient had come in with a broken hand, cradled to their chest, their shoulders hunched around it defensively. Julian had been so focused on that broken hand, the fingers twisting at unnatural angles, the blue tint of the skin, that he hadn't been watching the other one. And the other one sank a knife in Julian's thigh.

Well, the patient bolted after that, which was worrisome because the hand had looked quite awful, and it was unlikely that they would return to the clinic to get it treated properly, just because of the immense social awkwardness of having stabbed the doctor. But no, still worse was when Philipa found Julian on the floor, surrounded by a rapidly expanding pool of his own blood.

He would have handled it on his own, Julian would have--improvised some kind of tourniquet--expect there wasn't anything close at hand, and Julian didn't think he could afford removing pressure from his leg for long enough to find something.

He did feel terribly bad at Philipa's flinch and the way she paled when she spotted him, half-collapsed against the nearest wall, a tray of instruments littered around him on the floor after he'd knocked it over in his graceless fall.

"Pop quiz!" Julian declared as Philipa knelt down in front of him. The blood loss made that remark make sense in his head, and he giggled a bit before his face turned serious again. "I seem to h-have gotten myself in, erm, a spot of stabbing. What is the standard treatment for--"

Philipa's hands came down over his. She did not press down, but the knife was still in, so that held some of his blood still plugged. He grew alarmed when her hand went to the hilt, though.

"Wait--" he yelped, and at the same moment she pulled the knife out. The pain blanked his vision white for a split second, or maybe that was the panic. He hadn't rushed the words out quickly enough, and with the knife removed he was going to bleed out, but before he could stumble on a set of instructions, she placed her hands over the injury, and the glow of magic seared hot and bright around the wound.

It was not quite pain and not quite burning, but it felt like liquid lightning was being dripped into his veins through his injury. His leg twitched even as Philipa's hands pressed down, and the heat seemed to bubble up from inside out, flesh knitting together in a squelching, glowing heave.

It winnowed off in a static prickle over his skin, as Philipa removed her hands only to reveal a puckered scar, streaked with blood but otherwise healed.

Julian sat speechless for a long moment, staring at his healed leg. Had she known how to do that from the beginning? Was this really what magic could do? If she could do this, why learn to be a doctor at all?

But then, as she sat back on her haunches, she swayed like she was the one who'd suffered blood loss, and Julian caught her by the shoulders before she could fall over. Her own hands went to his face, and he could feel the wetness on them, just like he could see the stains he was leaving on her shirt. They were making a right mess of one another.

"Are you alright?" she asked, searching his face.

"Me! What about you! What did you do? Is-- is that alright? Was that... alright for you to-- do?" He wasn't sure how to phrase it exactly, but she seemed to get the point, because she nodded.

"It's fine, I'm fine," she bobbed her head, probably making herself even dizzier than she looked. "It was just sudden. That was-- don't ever-- just announce the next pop quiz, will you?"

With that, she teetered forward, her head falling onto Julian's shoulder.

"That defeats the point of it being a pop quiz," he argued weakly, but he wrapped his arms around her and rubbed her back.

Maybe it was the jittery remnants of adrenaline, maybe it was the magic, but it felt like sparks were still going off in his veins as he held her. If her touch was a delicious temptation before, he didn't know how he was going to be able to resist it now that he knew the feeling of her hands pressing against the muscles of his thigh and pouring herself into him.

* * *

"Come for drinks with me tonight," he blurted out one evening.

A smile quirked at Philipa's lips, and her voice was perfectly level and guileless:

"You have your drink here," she gestured to the mug of coffee.

"I'm quitting coffee," Julian replied. "I quit. Have quit it already. Come get proper drinks with me."

"Should a doctor be drinking?" she wondered idly, and only to tease him--he could tell. He thought he could tell, at least.

He grasped her hand in both of his, turned pleading eyes on her. "To hell with doctors, I'll only be Julian if you come," he declared.

"Will there be dancing, as well?" she asked, and her smile grew teeth.

"On the tables, until they throw us out," Julian said.

"Alright, then, Julian," she said, and the sound of his name on her lips caught along his spine like static. He grinned wide enough to make his cheeks hurt.

And when he took her to the Rowdy Raven, she danced him ragged all night.

* * *

When Julian walked into the clinic that day, he did not expect the ethereal creature he ran into.

Whoever they were--dressed in mismatched swatches of color, fluffy white hair like a cloud and a violet gaze that fell onto their surroundings half-lidded and half-interested--Julian had never met anyone quite as arresting, and so he stopped in his tracks, surprised and unsure about what he was supposed to be doing in his own damn clinic.

The stranger turned their gaze on Julian, slow and unhurried and a little bit dreamy, and looked Julian up and down in a way that made Julian swallow and hope he wasn't found lacking.

"So, this is the reason she won't leave Vesuvia?" the stranger asked, like he was referencing some previous conversation that Julian hadn't been privy to. 

"I--don't..." Julian licked his lips, before he finally rallied. "Can I, uh, help you?"

The stranger continued to regard him, coolly assessing, head tilting, until their eyes shot to something behind Julian.

It was Philipa's voice that came to save Julian from that strange interaction.

"Asra!" she said, walking past Julian.

"I went to the shop and it was closed," Asra said, lips turning to a pout. 

When Philipa approached, they gravitated around one another with the ease of celestial bodies following their natural orbit. Asra's hands fell to Philipa's waist; her hands went to Asra's coat's lapels. Only belatedly, Julian noticed the snake curled around Asra's shoulders, pearly body entwined with their scarf, curious head turning towards Philipa as its tongue flickered out and scented the air. The snake's appearance did not seem to faze Philipa, because she crooned and petted its head before she turned her attention back to Asra.

They didn't kiss, but Julian would have almost expected them to do so, expected to see them sway in on one another until their lips met.

"Oh, I'm sorry, should I give you the key?" Philipa asked, and dug into her pocket for her shop key.

"I don't need the key, I want you to come with me," Asra said.

"And I told you why that's not happening. Now, key or not?" she asked, dangling a heavy brass key from her fingers.

This sounded to Julian like they were going through the motions of some old argument, but maybe going through the motions was all that it was, because Asra held her gaze and pouted only for a few seconds more, before sighing and taking the key.

"Your co-worker looks like a scoundrel," Asra remarked, like he was sullenly taking a potshot on his way out because he didn't get what he really wanted.

Philipa burst into laughter. "That's the doctor, Asra."

Asra gave her an unimpressed look--Julian guessed it meant 'really? This is the guy you work for?', which was understandable. Julian didn't exactly hang his career on looking professional.

"Go home, Asra," she said. "I'll be there tonight."

Asra pouted, artful and delicate in how put-upon they acted, and disentangled from Philipa's embrace reluctantly. But their touch lingered, drawing a slow path down her arm, and they grasped her hand, bringing it to their lips to kiss the inside of her wrist. They gave her a heated look from under snow-white eyelashes, so laden with hidden meaning that Julian found himself looking away, flustered.

"I'll be waiting for you," Asra said, voicing it like a promise.

"Hm," was Philipa's response--not disbelief, Julian didn't think. It sounded like a reprimand, though Julian couldn't know for what.

Asra departed, and Philipa stayed, arms crossed, her expression distant. Yet when Julian stepped closer, she stirred out of her thoughts, and looked up at him with a strained smile.

"I suppose I should apologize for him," Philipa said, "though I'm sure he'd see no reason for it."

"You don't need to apologize for anyone," Julian said. "But... do you want to talk about it?"

* * *

They ended up at the Rowdy Raven that evening. Julian didn't know if this was something that warranted a private talk instead, but something about the easy intimacy Philipa seemed to have with Asra made Julian uneasy about being alone with her now. He felt strangely like he had been overstepping this entire time.

Not that Philipa gave any indication that this was the case. She didn't seem all that different towards Julian now, and if anything, seemed more ambivalent about Asra.

They ordered drinks, and tucked themselves away to a table in the corner; public enough that the murmur of the crowd would swallow the sound of their words, but quiet enough that they did not need to raise their voices to talk. Not that they talked much, at first. Philipa was through her second pint by the time the knot of tension in her shoulders loosened, and then she slumped against the table in something approximating relaxation.

It was only then that Julian dared broach the subject that had consumed his thoughts the entire day.

"So," Julian started. "Asra. Is he your..."

"My...?" Philipa looked at Julian expectantly.

"...Boyfriend?"

To Julian's surprise--and secret gratification--she snorted at that suggestion.

"Boyfriend? No, I think that's wrong on several fronts."

"But you're... together."

"Together." This time, as she echoed the word, her gaze drifted off to stare at some point over Julian's shoulder. "Yes, I suppose 'together' is the word for it. Was. Is." She sighed.

"That complicated, huh?"

She lapsed into silence for a long time, gazing into the depths of her Salty Bitters. But eventually, she found her words again.

"It's like this," she said. "Some people are like ale. You can find ale anywhere, and that's a comfort in itself. It's familiar and reassuring, and you can drink it in good company. It's a fun time. And some people are like that: fun. But other people are like... absinthe. Drink it straight from the bottle, and it goes straight to your head. Potent." She traced a finger along the grain of the table, her voice lowering into a dreamier register, some unconscious match to the person she was thinking of. "Deeply... affecting. Like a lucid dream, even though you're awake."

Julian took a long swig of his drink before he dared make the observation, "Asra's your absinthe, I take it."

"We used to get so lost in one another. Like there wasn't anything or anybody else in the world. It was so much more than enough... for a while."

"So what happened?"

"I think one day I just... looked around," she said. "And noticed all the things I didn't want to until then. And--I guess I felt guilty that I ignored so much in favor of my own happiness. The city started heading downhill long before then, and even if I gave it any mind earlier, I doubt I could have made any difference, but then... when I wanted to help, all Asra wanted to do was run away together." She gave a wry smile. "I guess I was his absinthe too. I just... wanted to be other things. That's when I started to volunteer at your clinic. And that's when Asra started talking about us going away together."

"Some people have a harder time putting down the bottle."

She sighed, and crossed her arms on the table top, and leaned her forehead against her crossed forearms.

"I don't know what to do about Asra anymore," she confessed, her voice muffled. "I love him, but I don't love the person I become when I let myself be swept up in him. And I don't think it's any better for him to get lost in me, either."

Julian made a sympathetic sound, and patted her back in what he hoped was reassurance.

Her head popped up again, and she grimaced apologetically.

"I'm sorry, this really isn't a problem you should be dealing with," she said. "I'm bringing the whole mood down at this table, aren't I?"

"Uh, no, it's fine," Julian rushed to reassure. "You're really bringing up some salient points of social philosophy."

She raised an eyebrow. "Oh? Like what?"

"Like, wh... well," Julian floundered for a beat as his brain ran to catch up with his mouth, "like, what am I in your metaphor? The Salty Bitters or the Golden Goose?" He grinned crookedly at her, and a ghost of a smile appeared on her face in response.

She propped her elbow on the table, and her chin in her hand, and she studied him very seriously for what felt like a long time.

"You come in a flask, if anything," she said, eyes narrowed.

"Oho, do I now?" Julian grinned.

"Something with a good burn on the way down," Philipa continued, her eyes tracing the path from his mouth, down along his throat, down along his chest and the deep slit of his open shirt. Julian's heart thudded, and he could swear he felt that burn like he'd taken a swig of red brandy. "Something that warms you up on a cold night and settles hot in the belly," she continued, eyes looking lower along his body, like she could see Julian straight through the table. 

And he felt that too, the knot of heat in his belly, and a prickling tightness along his skin. He knew his face was probably red, and he bit his lip, worrying at it as an outlet to the sudden nervous energy in his limbs, but he couldn't even squirm. Her attention was like a hook, holding him in place.

Her gaze flitted back up to his, and they remained locked into that stare. Her pupils were dilated, her cheeks flushed dark, and Julian noted this with the same medical detachment that stopped him from reaching out and extracting hungry kisses from her: they'd both been drinking, and Philipa was mourning the state of her relationship, and Julian-- well, he didn't have a clear head either. Better not to leave the thinking to the wrong one, all things considered.

"Maybe," Julian spoke, in spite of himself, in spite of the way it hurt to remove this hook from under his skin, "you should be getting along home to Asra."

If Philipa was disappointed, she didn't show it. 

* * *

The clinic was in a better state than ever, and that was partially--if not mostly--to his apprentice's credit. A handful of volunteers turned into a handful of paid assistants once Philipa contrived some system for distributing fairly the piddly payments of whichever patients could afford to pay. Sometimes it was money, but often it was any small services or items the patients could spare: a baker bringing a tray of baked goods after their broken leg was mended, or a seamstress sparing old fabric for bandages after she had a nasty cough tended at the clinic. 

Perhaps running a magic shop had endowed Philipa with more money sense than Julian had considered, but he certainly noticed when his city-granted stipend started stretching just a bit further every week. With enough people at the clinic, he could even make more housecalls, which certainly the more elderly or immobile of patients appreciated. Even his research into the red plague, with as little progress as it presented, was beginning to look as though it might open to new avenues of investigation when he actually had time to spare for it.

Everything could be said to run about as well as could be hoped, with one added hitch.

Asra had begun dropping in almost every day.

Ostensibly, this had to be because Philipa was there every day as well--and indeed, on her few days off, when Julian insisted he did not even want to see her around the clinic until she had rested and returned with more pep in her step, Asra would not be there either. But when he did appear, and lingered around the clinic like a cold draft, it felt like Julian was the one he was haunting.

He wasn't-- Asra wasn't doing anything wrong, was the thing. He hovered, mostly, sometimes around Philipa, but often just out of the corner of Julian's eye, and though he made no pretense of being a volunteer, if someone requested some help or assigned him some task, he would still do it: fetch items, strip bedsheets, clean blood and less pleasant things off the floor. And so one could not even call him as being in the way.

And Julian didn't want to be petty, certainly, but he had none but himself to blame for letting the situation continue as it did, because he also did not entirely want Asra to leave.

It was a bit like having a clinic cat, Julian would tell himself each morning he saw Asra slink in, close at Philipa's heels. He had a certain quality of managing to make himself comfortable anywhere, giving the impression of lounging resplendently even if all he was doing was leaning against a cabinet, with his chin propped in his hand, or draping himself over Philipa's shoulder and moulding himself like a cloak to her back as she sorted medicine.

Or maybe not a clinic cat: maybe more like that serpent he wore everywhere. Faust, Asra called her. His familiar, though Julian didn't know how that differed from a regular animal. Perhaps because a regular snake did not tend to pop up everywhere Julian went. He might open a cabinet or pick up a tray, and there Faust would be, coiling into sight and startling the life out of Julian. A regular snake, Julian supposed, would be more inclined to biting.

But Faust had taken to squeezing the life out of Julian at every opportunity, coiling around his neck or arm so tightly that he could feel it cut circulation. Julian had gone light in the head more than once during this treatment, but Faust was only an animal, familiar or not, and Julian thought this was her way of expressing affection, especially since even when Philipa shooed her away, there didn't appear to be malice in it. (Not malice on Faust's part, at least, though Julian had his suspicions about the way Asra just let his snake carry on like that.)

Julian didn't know what to make of this, save that Philipa looked mildly exasperated and not alarmed, whereas Asra looked invariably amused.

"Must you bring snakes into the clinic?" Julian asked Asra one day, when his patience finally boiled over.

"I don't bring snakes into the clinic," Asra replied, blinking innocently as the subject of their discussion draped herself over his shoulders. "I just bring Faust."

Faust turned her head towards Julian, her eyes guileless, her tongue flickering out as she looked at Julian. From this angle, there was something puppy-ish about her face that made Julian feel bad about taking any issue with her in the first place.

And Asra saw that first little crack of weakness, because he leaned forward and his eyelashes fluttered, drawing Julian's attention as surely as the beating of a bird's wings.

"Do you not like Faust?" Asra asked, just this side of hurt.

"She's fine," Julian blurted out, though it was not what he expected to hear himself saying. "She's-- uh, very... nice." Awkwardly, he reached up and patted Faust's head. "Good... snake."

Mischief sparked in Asra's expression, putting Julian even more on guard.

"Bold," Asra remarked airily, "to touch a magician's familiar like that."

"Uh--" Julian felt himself turn red up to the tips of his ears, and a smile spread across Asra's face, something fox-like and alarming about it.

Then Julian was drawn back to work, and he put the entire encounter out of his mind.

* * *

In the evenings, Julian still sat at his desk and worked, trying to brute force a solution to the red plague by sheer power of tenacity.

Julian didn't know how long Asra had been standing in the doorway of his study, but it could have been minutes or hours, for how long Julian's attention had been circumscribed to nothing but the scratch of his pen and the pages of his medical tomes. Julian only noticed he was being watched as he stopped to roll his sore shoulders, and he started at the sight of Asra standing in the semi-obscurity of the threshold, where lamplight lost ground to the shadows in the hallway.

A slow smirk appeared on Asra's face at the way Julian startled.

"Good evening," Asra said, and even the greeting seemed a trap.

"Uh, y-yes, hello," Julian blurted, like a clumsy fawn falling right into it.

The smirk on Asra's face only got wider, and he moved from the doorway only to wander closer to Julian's desk, rolling in like a cloud on the wind. He looked over Julian's desk with half-interest, eyes sliding over the scrawled words, before he reached out and shuffled the entire stack of papers aside.

Julian was taken aback, and straightened in his seat, suddenly on alarm. Asra took advantage of this to perch on top of Julian's desk, right in front of him, and then, when Julian retreated so far into his chair that he felt the backrest digging painfully into his back, Asra also placed a foot onto the front edge of Julian's seat, right between his legs. Not touching, mind, but Julian felt held in place nonetheless. He was pinned by nothing so much as the proximity of Asra, and the foot so close to Julian's groin had very few connotations that did not boil down to sexual advance or physical threat, or some heady mixture of both that had Julian's head feeling dizzy.

"Uhhh," was Julian's eloquent response to this state of affairs. "Can I... h-help you?"

Asra's expression was impassive save for that ever-present smirk, but he tilted his head as though thinking on Julian's questions, and his eyes raked up and down Julian's body like he was inspecting it for inadequacies and finding more than his fair share.

"Hm, I wonder," Asra said, in just the way to make heat rise in Julian's face.

"Asra." Philipa's voice jolted the both of them--Julian nearly flew out of his seat, but for Asra's foot there, and Asra even looked abashed for a split second before the expression was replaced with aloofness. Philipa stood in the doorway, surveying the scene with a frown pinching her brows together. Julian looked at her, and Asra looked stubbornly away, and Julian was struck by the thought that he was--for once--not the child caught with his hand in the cookie jar.

She walked towards them, and Julian expected her to usher Asra out the door, in that gently exasperated way of hers. Instead she rounded behind Julian, her hands falling to his shoulders.

"Asra, are you picking on Julian again?" Philipa demanded, sounding not at all angry and not even that accusing. She leaned down, arms coiling around Julian's shoulders in a loose embrace, hands ending up over the bare skin of Julian's chest, loosely clasped over his heart. This close, he could feel the tickle of her breath against his ear, like she was addressing him, and not Asra.

"I would never," Asra replied smoothly, his eyelashes fluttering in a passable imitation of complete and utter innocence.

It was all Julian could do not to huff in disbelief at Asra's antics, but between Philipa's loose embrace and Asra's still unmoving foot making it difficult to go one way or the other without having to hoist his gangly leg over Asra's, Julian felt... 

He didn't know how he felt about all of this. Maybe trapped was the word, except he didn't know if he ever wanted to leave in the first place. Whatever this interplay was between Philipa and Asra, whatever they communicated to each other with their secretive little glances, Julian couldn't say he minded being the filling in this magician sandwich.

It couldn't possibly be about him--he was pretext at most in their game, some piece they argued over, surely--but it still felt to Julian like he had their attention when their focus was entirely on each other, and it made some shuddering, guilty pleasure settle in a deep part of his chest. He gripped the sides of his seat with white-knuckled force, and small wonder the wood did not splinter under his grip.

Yet, as if sensing his thoughts, Philipa made a thoughtful sound. Her touch trailed like fire up again, cupping his cheek and turning Julian's face towards hers. 

The expression on her face was so much like Asra's, that Julian had to wonder who learned it from whom: half-lidded, dreamy, a smirk that made Julian's spine tingle when it was aimed at him. 

"Don't let him scare you," Philipa said, her voice gentle. But her gaze darted down for a split second, and Julian felt his face grow even redder as a full-on grin split her face. "Unless you're into that, of course."

Asra's laughter bubbled up, playful yet cutting, helping absolutely not at all with this situation, and then that accursed foot moved, and pressed against Julian's groin. The shoe was soft-soled, thin enough that there was no doubt Asra could feel the hardness of Julian's erection.

"Oh, he's very much into that," Asra piped up with and insufferably smug look on his face that only made arousal pool hot and acid between Julian's legs.

"Hush," Philipa said to Asra, before drawing her attention back to Julian, and looking into his face seriously. "Julian, do you want Asra to leave?"

Julian blinked, astounded by the question.

"No," he said hoarsely, before licking his dry lips and repeating more clearly, "No."

"How sweet," Philipa said. She looked suddenly giddy, and kissed Julian's cheek. "Would you like me to leave you two to it, then?"

Julian shuddered, and before she could remove the hand still cupping his other cheek, his own hand shot up to cover hers, keeping it in place.

"Definitely not," Julian said.

Asra must have taken this as a signal, because he hopped down from his perch on the desk, and then his hands were all over Julian, slipping into the opening of his shirt and raking through the hair on his chest. Before Julian could completely process this, Philipa tilted his head and kissed him, wet and hot and utterly delicious, while her own hands roamed down the line of his throat and shoulders.

Julian's back arched like someone had yanked on his strings, and he gave a shuddering moan under their hands.

He surrendered to them completely at that point.

* * *

Afterwards, when they'd all somehow managed to cram themselves on Julian's cot. Julian wasn't even sure how--magic, maybe?--but as he laid there covered in magicians, Asra's hair tickling his nose every time he breathed in, and Philipa's cold feet against his, he realized he could not for the life of him figure out how he ended up in this position.

Not that he was going to look this particular gifthorse in the mouth.


End file.
